While teeth are hard calcified objects, they are not completely solid. In the inner most aspect of every tooth there lies a hollow space which, when a tooth is healthy, contains the tooth’s nerve tissue. Dentists use the following terms to refer to various portions of this nerve area: The pulp chamber: This is a hollow space that lies more or less in the center of the tooth….

You might think that a tooth’s nerve tissue is vitally important to a tooth’s health and function, but in reality it’s not. A tooth’s nerve tissue plays an important role in the growth and development of the tooth, but once the tooth has erupted through the gums and has finished maturing the nerve’s only function is sensory (it provides the tooth with the ability to feel hot and cold).
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Our bodies, as a defence mechanism, will initiate an “inflammation reaction” when irritants (such as those seeping out of a problematic tooth) have injured or destroyed body tissues. If incorporating the term “inflammation” into our description we would then say, root canal treatment is the treatment of the inner aspects of a tooth…

In a nutshell, the process of root canal treatment first removes (as thoroughly as possible) bacteria, nerve tissue, the organic debris left over from the breakdown of nerve tissue, and bacterial toxins out from within the inner aspects of a tooth (the area originally occupied by the tooth’s nerve tissue). All of these items either are or will produce the tissue irritants that can cause your body to activate an inflammation reaction….

You might think that a tooth’s nerve tissue is vitally important to a tooth’s health and function, but in reality it’s not. A tooth’s nerve tissue plays an important role in the growth and development of the tooth, but once the tooth has erupted through the gums and has finished maturing the nerve’s only function is sensory (it provides the tooth with the ability to feel hot and cold).
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